


Mother Of All Leverage

by pinkbagels



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alpha John, Alpha Sherlock, Beta Lestrade, Established (sort of) Mystrade, Molly Hooper kicks ass, Mpreg, Multi, Omega Mycroft, Omegaverse, Other, warnings for child neglect/abuse (not of canon characters), warnings for miscarriage
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2018-12-15 03:43:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11797692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkbagels/pseuds/pinkbagels
Summary: An unexpected emergency hospital visit places Mycroft in the path of chaos, which is nothing new for him, he does have Sherlock Holmes as a brother, after all.  But the tired Omega is shocked at what DI Lestrade brings into the fray, and despite himself Mycroft discovers a sense of longing to *care*.Sentiment is inconvenient and messy. He knows this.  But how can deny it within himself when it's the one thing that could save an injured infant's life?





	1. the cradle has fallen

MOTHER OF ALL LEVERAGE  
chapter one

"I'm sorry, Mr. Holmes." The pretty young nurse with her large brown eyes and cherub red cheeks clasped his hand in hers in empathy. A cruel thing to do, he thought, for she had to know how much it hurt him, her sad face and her doleful eyes and that damned *care* that dripped out of her soul like a sickly syrup. I'm sorry. Why do people say such a stupid phrase when it's clear the only hand in the outcome was Fate itself? These strangers weren't responsible. It smacked of the ego, putting oneself into another's misfortune, making it personal when they would go home and talk about how relieved they were that it hadn't happened to themselves.

"There will be residual bleeding and you can expect some severe cramping. If the bleeding is heavy or persists for several days, you will need to come back to the hospital emergency immediately, since this could mean that not all of the placenta has been removed." She pressed her hand in his and though he didn't want to give her a reassuring squeeze back, he did so out of protocol politeness, hiding the growing sensation within him to break every one of her fingers. 

"This is very common for Omegas of your age, Mr. Holmes. To be honest, it's quite remarkable you were able to get pregnant at all. Is there anyone we can call? Your mate, perhaps?"

He shook his head and rolled his eyes at this suggestion. A one night stand thanks to too many gin and tonics on the shore of the Dead Sea was hardly a memory let alone a mate. The man had been a terrible lover, a handsy Alpha of Welsh royal leanings with small eyes and crooked teeth. After being in what was on his end an exclusive relationship for nearly a decade, to end up tumbling drunk in the salted sand with *that*...Better to deny it and claim parthenogenesis. 

The morning after had been dreadful as well. All gormless charm and hopes that Mycroft would think about it in future again someday, but not right now as how the Omega Missus might get a tad annoyed with their transgression. Best keep it on the down low, yes? To which Mycroft replied that he had no clue what the man was talking about, that he was clearly mistaken for such actions had never, ever happened, and was he well? Mycroft had been convincing enough to have the man doubting his very sense of reality, and it was no surprise that two months later he'd taken a mental leave of absence, citing early dementia.

The nurse's soft hand pressed harder in his own and he did appreciate how the firmer grasp made him feel slightly less tetchy. He felt a pang of self recrimination at having been so miserable to her in his mind. This was her job, after all, and he wondered how many times a day she had to tell the pregnant Omegas in her care that their hopes and dreams were dashed. She was good at comforting him, and that was no easy task. Considering the high rate of Omega miscarriages in the general population he quickly calculated that she would have a patient like him at least twice to three times a day.

Negative bias would help make the bad news outweigh the good. He pressed her hand tighter in his and swallowed back the lump of disappointment that had welled thick in his throat.

"Do you have family here, Mr. Holmes?"

Ha!

Had he sputtered that exclamation out? From the sad way she was looking at him, he must have. As if he could rely on any of those reckless oafs to keep his secrets and to simply let him be without showering him with pointless sympathy and advice. He could see John Watson already, playing doctor, working him over with pinched concern and judging his lack of tears. What did it matter? This was a common enough thing, the nurse already said it. No point crying over it. It was simple biology coming into play, nothing more.

That this was his last chance, ever, to have a child was not something he was set to mourn or think too deeply about. He'd made a decision long ago that he was not the sort cut out for the happy family life, and he'd lived his life accordingly. Single, mostly, and Omega. Scandalously barren.

"It's just that, well, you need someone to take you home, Mr. Holmes. Leaving on your own isn't recommended because..."

"I have a driver," he interrupted her. He took out his cell phone. "I can call him now to meet me at the hospital entrance."

Her big, wide eyes and thin brows perched above them were limpid with concern. "But Mr. Holmes, it's a bit more than that. It's about having a support system. With the sudden drop of hormones, you will be feeling very ill and, well, not yourself. Depression is common and..."

"I will be fine," he snapped, and he was already leaning over the hospital bed and gathering up his clothes. "If you could pull the curtain over, that would be much appreciated."

Her moping over his predicament was unnecessary, and he felt relief when she sighed in sad understanding and finally picked up his chart and pulled the curtain over and allowed him to redress with some semblance of privacy. A fresh suit had been delivered to him via courier and he bagged the bloodied trousers that had once belonged to a quality Merrion bespoke. Embarrassing, really. He'd been in the lobby of Lestrade's condo, queued up to go into the elevator when the first cramp hit. The front desk security had called 999 when he collapsed to the marble floor. By the time the paramedics arrived he was laying in a thick halo of slick and blood.

Mortifying. He would need to gather the CCTV footage and ensure it was deleted from all records.

He really should have known better. This was the sixth time this had happened, his first one at twenty-five, four in his mid thirties and now this one, at the age of forty-three. Every time he had the strange fallacy that the child would be viable and every time he had been proven wrong. Punishing, stressful work schedules and lack of sleep could be the culprits, but he knew the answer was more sinister than this. 

No life wanted to thrive within him. That was a simple fact.

His branch of the Holmes legacy was routinely pruned.

He pushed the curtain aside and the red cheeked nurse with large eyes and pinching worry was standing in front of him again. She shoved a card into his hand. "A counselling service," she said. "Please give them a call. This isn't something you should deal with alone."

He gave her well meaning but ultimately misguided effort a polite nod. "Thank you."

He felt dizzy and weak, but he draped his coat over his arm and hooked his umbrella into the crook of his elbow as he made small steps out of the examining room. He felt relief that it was over, and he longed to go home, to take a long bath and breathe easy, a glass of wine helping him forget the stress and humiliation of having a personal incident interfere with his work. He rubbed the back of his neck and gave the ER a cursory glance as he made his way to the entrance, his steps slowing the more he took in the alien silence that suddenly surrounded him.

No. This wasn't right. He could taste it in the air, a metallic sort of bitterness that crept along the length of his tongue.

Anticipation.

The ER of St. Bart's was eerily quiet, a level of tension hovering in the air that put him on instant high alert. Nurses and doctors snatched up disposable yellow cover ups, while surgeons paced at the front admittance staring at the doors with grim expectation. He was surprised to see Molly Hooper among them, and he approached her, curious of the drama about to unfold before him. 

"Miss Hooper?"

She turned around and gave him wide eyes, clearly shocked to see him. They were never anything close to friends, but she had been instrumental in ensuring Sherlock's apparent suicide was believed, her skill as a coroner never in question. He'd always considered her an oddly intense Beta, the calm of the morgue more suited to her nervous personality than the crush of the ER.

"Mycroft!" she said, frowning. "What are you doing here? Is Sherlock all right?"

Of course. It would always be about Sherlock. "I was the one admitted." He tried on his pat answer. "For exhaustion."

"Oh," she said, frowning still, her little nervous mind scurrying like a mouse over crumbs and gathering up all the facts she could before hiding away once again. "I...You look very pale, more than usual. Are you all right?"

"I will be," Mycroft assured her. He nodded at the gathering of emergency personnel. "What's going on here?"

"Bus accident," Molly said, turning her focus back on the emergency room doors. "All hands on deck."

"Ah," Mycroft said, still looking at her with pensive scrutiny. "Are they expecting many corpses?"

Molly swung her head around and glared at him with a viciousness that was wholly unexpected. Truly, fascist generals would have quaked in their boots at the way acid dripped from her voice as she spoke. 

"I *am* an orthopaedic surgeon, Mr. Holmes. And I am set to be very busy, very soon."

"I don't doubt it, Miss Hooper."

She didn't back down. "You shouldn't."

He wanted to explain that if it was a bus accident, then it would stand to reason many of the casualties that arrived wouldn't make it on the ride in and thus it wouldn't be remiss for him to think she was still acting as a coroner. Of course, the scrubs were dead giveaway of her current role, and it was clear his perception was skewed by his tiredness and loss of blood, hormones battering around in his skull and dulling his usually sharp reasoning. He was annoyed by her judgement and he wanted to remind her that he was not his brother, he did not manipulate her with flirtation and idle promises of something more than friendship, he did not discount her expertise nor her deep observations that cut clear through to the marrow of Sherlock's greatest faults. But he had no time to remind of her of this for the doors flung open and the ER became a chaotic nightmare of mangled bodies, blood and screams with surgeon Molly Hooper in its very epicentre.

The flood of injured children was wreaking havoc on his psyche, their high pitched wailing in their hospital beds cutting into his skull while nurses and doctors frantically did what they could to heal them. Still, he was rooted here, fascinated by the way chaos was brought into strict order, the pulse of the hospital quickened but still steady. He watched, transfixed, as Molly Hooper directed specialists to the more severe cases and fearlessly reset bones and brought stilled hearts back to life, all in the expanse of an hour. By the second hour she was assigning OR rooms and all surgeons knew which patients were their highest priority. The strangeness of seeing her in action like this, confident and stone faced with the determination of a soldier, reminded him of John Watson, who had similar experience in far less domestic settings. The fact struck him with a sense of awe. Molly Hooper was brought up from the depths of the morgue to be in charge. 

This was St. Bart's disaster protocol. Surgeon Molly Hooper ran the trauma team.

He saw Dr. Watson run through the centre of the melee and Molly, not looking up from the chest she was currently cutting into, her hand dug through flesh to massage the fluttering heart of a child no older than ten, shouted at him, "Dr. Watson! How nice of you to join us on your lunch break! Patients four, six and seven are yours, massive internal bleeding on four, punctured lung due to flail chest, segmented fractures in ribs three, four and five, that's your patient six and a broken arm and severe concussion on seven, get that last one to CT as soon as possible, make sure there isn't a brain bleed." She straddled her patient and was wheeled with her hand still in the child's chest out of the room by a team of frantic surgeons and nurses, running to the nearest OR. "Don't stand there gawping, Dr. Watson, MOVE!"

"Right." Dr. Watson snatched up the charts and marched past Mycroft, quickly catching his eye, his shock at seeing the elder Holmes momentarily derailing him. "Oh God, is this..." He glanced around the room, overwhelmed by the implications of Mycroft's presence and that of severely injured children. "Is this a terrorist attack?"

Mycroft had no time to tell him, no, this was simply an unfortunate accident, a left turn made at the wrong moment, the school bus going too fast and colliding hard with a blue BMW. Anthea had given him the details an hour ago. Alcohol was probably involved. John Watson, soldier and surgeon, ran past him to his patients, number seven having a seizure, indicative of swelling on the brain as Molly had suspected. Mycroft knew he should leave, but he was rooted by the cries of the broken all around him. The situation smacked of field work and he hated that this had happened. Regardless of how carefully one planned one's life, possibilities and repercussions statistically exhausted and one's existence kept free of all semblance of outside influence, Bad Things still found their way in.

The children were in uniform, Mycroft recognized. A soft blue tartan that indicated one of the more prestigious private boarding schools in the London area. If one of his six possibilities had survived his own child could have been here, tossed within a rolling school bus and broken apart like a shattered ceramic doll. 

His cell phone buzzed and Mycroft glanced at it. A text, from his driver, telling him the traffic was backed up thanks to the severity of the accident, he would need a path cleared to get to St. Bart's. Mycroft sent the order to Anthea to make it happen. 

The door to the ER swung open again and Mycroft braced himself, wondering if this was another wave of injured ready to assail the already overwrought staff. He was surprised to see DI Lestrade rush to the admittance window, four constables following close behind him. He had a bundle in his arms, wrapped in a wool scarf that Mycroft remembered buying him for Christmas several years ago. A deep chestnut brown that matched the hue of Lestrade's large, expressive eyes.

"Look, I need a doctor now! I don't care how damned busy you are, this takes priority!"

"Sir, I need you to fill out the chart..."

He flashed his badge at the harried nurse behind the glass. "DI Lestrade, Special Crimes Division, this CAN'T wait!"

Molly Hooper, released from her grip in surgery, was now marching past the rows of attended patients, most of them now finally stabilized. She frowned as she saw DI Lestrade, her bloody gloves snapped off and tossed in the trash as she approached him. "What's going on?"

"Baby," Lestrade said, handing the bundle to her. "Not doing too good, from the looks of it. A junkie in Hackney went to sleep rough near a dumpster behind the Sparrows tenements and heard her crying. Ripped apart the garbage bag and called us up frantic on his cell. Bloody Anderson thought the guy was just tweaking at first, until he heard the poor thing crying. It's a miracle she didn't suffocate. Pretty sure that left arm is broken, though."

"Oh God," Molly said, taking the whimpering bundle from him and waving over a team of nurses. "I'll check her vitals and get her up to pedes. You brought her in yourself?"

"Paramedics are all used up for the accident. Had a hell of a time getting through the backed up traffic. She's breathing, but it's not steady, and her hands and feet are blue. Other than her arm, nothing else seems broken. Rubbed her good for circulation on the way in but it didn't do much."

"She's near full term, which gives her a better chance. She'll need a full work up, oxygen and scans, this swelling in her belly looks like internal bleeding."

"She got tossed in the trash, Molls, who knows how many bumps she got on the way down the chute."

"God, Greg, it's a hell of a day for this to come in."

Horrified, Mycroft watched as the infant was brought into a rather specific ER examining room, where an incubator was already waiting. He watched through the glass as Molly Hooper worked over the tiny, blue tinged bundle, checking limbs for fractures and heart rates and levels of oxygen. A paediatric specialist ran into the room and began a similar investigation and with a nod to Molly the priority was set. The impact of the fall had nicked her spleen and she was bleeding internally. The baby was going into surgery. Immediately.

She was so small on that large bed. So fragile and alone, tossed away and yet still here she was, fighting to live. He stared at her tiny face, scrunched in pain and felt the desperate pulse of her fist around his icy heart. It thawed, just a little. He watched her sparrow's chest heave as she tried to cry, and he pressed his palm against the glass in an instinctive need to comfort her. To make a connection.

He caught Lestrade's curious eye and blinked once before taking his hand away.

Lestrade left the examining room and approached Mycroft, who had now stepped away from the glass with a strange sense of guilt, as though he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't. "What are you doing here? Was this some sort of terrorist thing?"

Mycroft answered him with distracted disinterest, his attention still roving back to the window, to the tiny baby in the centre of the hospital bed, and the rails going up and Molly Hooper and the paediatric surgeon leaving the room with her to head for an OR. "No, the bus hit a BMW. Speeding. How is the baby you brought in? Do you think she'll survive the surgery?"

DI Lestrade let out a hiss of impatience. "You didn't answer my question, Mycroft, what are you doing here?"

"I collapsed at a meeting," he lied. "Exhaustion."

"You look awful." Lestrade placed a hand on Mycroft's shoulder and massaged it, the touch making Mycroft shiver. "I told you, you need to get more sleep. Whatever world crisis it was, you're still a human being and you have the biological need to recharge like anyone else. You didn't have to leave the bed in such a rush this morning, you tossed and turned all night and I practically begged you to sleep in."

"I have responsibilities, Gregory."

"And one of them is taking care of yourself." He draped his arm around Mycroft's shoulders and the touch was so welcome he couldn't stop himself from leaning into it. Lestrade's sweet breath was at his ear. "I do my best in that regard. I know it I did it well last night."

Yes, Mycroft conceded, he was very appreciative of Gregory Lestrade, who was far more than just a peripheral fixture in his life though he'd been careful not to let his brother know this. Gregory, who had been there during times of crisis, when Sherlock had overdosed and had to be brought into hospital, when Sherlock had committed crimes in order to further his understanding of a case and Mycroft had to bail him out, when he'd been at the end of his rope, bereft of patience when Sherlock had, yet again, been found half dead in a heroin flop house and refused all manner of treatment. It was Gregory who had discovered Sherlock's talent for deduction and who had steered him nearly a decade ago towards his 'consulting detective' career that had, quite literally, saved Sherlock's life. But that had been a long process, and one that involved many a late night sitting up with Lestrade and devising plans to help his wayward brother. And the facts were, Lestrade was a kind and genuine Beta, and Mycroft was an overworked, worried Omega in need of comfort, and if the topic of Sherlock was, eventually, pushed aside in favour of more personal subjects, well...A soft bed and warm arms was not so terrible a fallout.

They'd never formally become a 'couple'. They weren't 'bonded' as many would have assumed. At the height of their affair, Gregory was still married to a pushy Alpha named Alicia who regularly cheated on him with Omegas of either sex, though she had a pronounced preference for female Omegas with small bone structures. She'd moved out and bonded with an Irish Omega librarian who sang karaoke songs during ABBA nights at the pub next to St. Bart's. She was a shrill vocalist who couldn't find a note, but ego superceded talent. Sherlock informed Mycroft that Lestrade's ex and her mate were expecting their fourth child. Lestrade had shrugged at that information, and asked Sherlock if he thought the kids were going to be as tone deaf as their mothers. Sherlock thought it very likely.

Their love affair didn't have a passionate start. Christmas, eight years ago, a year before Dr. John Watson had stumbled into Sherlock's life and brought with him a strange stability, Mycroft was in a hospital ER much like this one, demanding Sherlock go into a new treatment program in Glasgow or he was cutting him off. Sherlock knew an empty threat when he saw one, and he stormed out of the hospital, IV lines still in his arm. Mycroft didn't have time to pursue him, he'd been left in charge of halting a terrorist attack on Bethlehem and had been working for fifty-six hours straight, organizing the hiring of sniper assassins and working with the military in decoding the terrorist strongholds. Lady Smallwood made no concessions to his situation, making it very clear that if international bloodshed happened it was all on Mycroft's head. 

He'd resolved the problem, of course. Merry Christmas.

At one in the morning that fated night he'd gone to Lestrade's place of residence, to his lovely condominium in a rather suburban section of Chelsea, in order to give him a gift. During one of his many frantic tours between the middle east and London over the frenetic pace of those days he'd caught the colour of a lovely wool scarf infused with cashmere in the window of an airport men's shop. The scarf was a deep chestnut hue that instantly reminded him of Lestrade. It was not a well thought out purchase, and they hadn't been in the habit of exchanging gifts, but Mycroft was grateful for the one person in his life who didn't rail at him with recriminations over his decisions. So he'd bought it, had it wrapped and forgot about it.

Until one in the morning that night, when he'd seen it sitting on his kitchen counter and though he was exhausted beyond human endurance, he picked up the gift and had his driver take him to Lestrade's building. 

Lestrade didn't answer his door. Mycroft, being who he was, easily decoded the punch pad used in lieu of keys and gained entrance, the gift tossed beneath the little ceramic tree Lestrade had placed on a side table and plugged into the wall. It had multicoloured plastic doves perched on tacky glass leaves and revolved on a small mirrored plate. Touching it made it sing Jingle Bells. He made sure not to.

He remembers sliding off his coat and stepping out of his shoes, making himself at home in the condo which he'd visited several times before. Even now he can't be sure if it was mere tiredness that had made him do it. He walked the length of Gregory's living room and caught sight of him behind the open door of his bedroom, snoring between burgundy sheets. Before he knew it, Mycroft was following that sound into the room and he was unbuttoning his shirt and tossing off his trousers and then, with a sigh of bliss he felt he had never experienced in his life, he slid between the covers and fell asleep.

Boxing Day he awoke to Gregory's languid kisses, and he hadn't realized how eager he was to return them, his body relaxed and happily responding to the gentle warmth that was offered. He supposed it was the softness of it all that appealed to him most, for he'd been around nothing but Alphas for the majority of his life, his brother and both his parents always pushing their agendas and ignoring his needs. Even his work was an endless stream of Alpha diplomats and associates, his Omega status affording him a measure of power in that they were instinctively all trying to fuck him in one way or another. Pushy, forceful, angry Alphas who always wondered what he'd look like under the influence of a knot. He'd had exactly two sexual experiences with Alphas in his life and both had been horrendous. He didn't like being pinned down, immobilized for an hour thanks to a selfish knotting session which did very little for him when it came to satisfaction and instead made him feel used and dirty. The last one had been a huge mistake, a simple flirtation gone wrong that had left his buttocks chafed from the sand. 

Gregory had laughed when he told him about it. They had never been exclusive, and Gregory had been with a few other people, mostly Beta females, brief flings he always told Mycroft about and which were happening more frequently as of late. Biological clocks were ticking and Gregory was showing signs of restlessness towards starting a family and Mycroft obviously couldn't give him one. Theirs was an amicable, open relationship, though Mycroft couldn't help but feel disappointed, even a little hurt if he examined it more closely, for he wasn't entirely sure he liked it that way. 

He'd never been fond of sharing. 

The way Gregory had looked at him when he'd relayed his horrible one night stand had been interesting, however, for it was as though he was relieved there wouldn't be a repeat.

A child screamed and Mycroft was instantly brought back into the emergency at St. Bart's, Molly Hooper shining a light into an unresponsive twelve year old girl's eyes in the bed directly across from where he was standing. He could still feel Lestrade's firm grip on his shoulder and the reason for why he was in the hospital in the first place weighed heavily on him. He felt sick and dizzy and he broke free of Lestrade's gentle touch to seek out a nearby chair, sinking into it with a sigh of deep relief. Lestrade stood in front of him, hands in pockets.

"Do you want someone to drive you home?"

Mycroft closed his eyes. "No. I want to stay here."

Lestrade frowned. "Why?"

Lestrade's cell rang and he dug it out of his trench coat, answering it on the third ring. "Yeah, Sherlock, what is it? Look, I'm a bit busy at the moment, I can't just go and get files when I'm out in the field, all right? Yes, I'm at St. Bart's, how did you know? There's a connection with the cuneiform, then. The dancing men, it's a computer binary code, got it. Yeah, I'll get some pen and paper and write the zeros and ones down, hold on. Why yes, I do bloody well know what binary code is, I wasn't born under a rock, Sherlock, I do use computers all the bloody time."

A case. In the midst of all this pain and misery, Sherlock's life still took the bulk of everyone's attention, even Lestrade's. The DI gave Mycroft an exasperated look and made a motion asking if he wanted to talk to his brother, earning an emphatic mouthed 'No' from Mycroft. But it was clear Sherlock had made a huge stride in whatever case he was working on and Lestrade was happy with the results, the rows of binary code he'd scribbled on a bright pink post-it folded over and tucked into his wallet. 

"I have to head back to the Yard. I have to write up a full report on the baby we found and Sherlock's sussed out a major break in that dancing man case, so I'll be late getting home. Unless you'd like me to stay at your place, you're closer to the Yard anyway."

Mycroft nodded. "That would be preferable. Be warned, however, my cupboards are bare. There are takeaway pamphlets on the refrigerator, The Elephant Curry House is quite good."

"You never have food in that thing." Lestrade gave him a quick kiss on the top of his head. "Don't know why you're hanging about here, but don't be too long. Get home, get some rest."

He watched Lestrade leave, his phone already out of his pocket once again, in deep conversation with Sherlock who was outlining a detailed plan, one that Dr. Watson would be plunged into at the last moment so the brilliant Sherlock Holmes could shine more brightly in his estimation than ever. Or so Sherlock thought, Watson was a critical Alpha who didn't respond well to this sort of posturing and an argument was set to happen over the case instead. Mycroft rolled his eyes and swallowed back on the nausea that threatened to well up from within his gut. He felt sick, his hands trembling. He hadn't eaten a thing since the morning.

He remained in his chair, watching as the chaos dwindled into a simpler panic and then into hurried steps and finally into shadowed calm. It was well after ten o'clock by the time he saw Molly Hooper again, and it was only then that he rose from his chair and waved her over. If she noticed he leaned too heavily on his umbrella she kindly didn't mention it.

"Mr. Holmes, you're still here? God, you've been here for hours, is there something I need to know? Is Sherlock all right?"

"My brother is just fine," Mycroft said, and he couldn't help the snap in his voice. "I was just waiting on word of the infant that Inspector Lestrade brought in earlier, if she is out of surgery."

"Oh," Molly said, frowning, and then, glad to be the bearer of good news, her face erupted into a smile that flooded Mycroft with a sense of relief. "Oh she's doing just fine! Her oxygen levels are still a little low, but that's to be expected thanks to the trauma. The surgery on her spleen was a success. Her arm is in a cast and it was a clean break, lucky little thing, radial fractures are hell to fix especially on soft baby bones." She gave Mycroft a happy grin that still retained some confusion within it. "I don't understand. Why are you asking about her?"

Mycroft didn't know how to answer her. He didn't know why himself. "I'm merely curious about her prognosis. To have her come in during the height of a disaster, that took some juggling on managing her case on your part, Miss Hooper. I must say I'm impressed with your powers of delegation."

Molly gave him a proud, twee little smile at this and he knew he'd gained what he wanted, her distraction against why he would be interested in a baby tossed in the trash and shoved down a tenement garbage chute. She gave him a secretive little nod, suggesting he follow her to the elevators and he did so, his umbrella tapping against the hospital tiles as he measured out her gullibility. He only made it four steps before she was already poking holes in his excuses. Well done, Miss Hooper.

"Exhaustion is a funny thing to be hospitalized for," she said, still smiling and shaking her head in that nervous, mousy little way of hers, crumbs of facts collecting in her path yet again. "Does this happen often?"

"I was busy working on a very sensitive matter involving arms being sold to ISIS cells." This wasn't an entire lie, Lady Smallwood had pulled him out of his bed early that morning with demands he rectify the conflict by any means necessary. He understood better than she, however, that bloodshed didn't always get one the proper result. He was able to curb the sale of arms by setting up a new negotiation with the arms dealers, the weapons now heading for a far less volatile country whose conflicts didn't impact the globe. Make no mistake, people were always going to die. He just made sure the threat wasn't an immediate one on those he worked for.

"Sounds like that could be complicated," she said, clutching a chart to her chest. The elevator doors opened and she tilted her head, bidding Mycroft to go in. "Third floor is paediatrics. She's in the preemie nursery, two rooms down from the nurse's desk. You can't miss her, she's the only one with a big pink cast on her little arm."

Mycroft thanked her and got into the elevator. He still felt weak but if he collapsed again at least he was in a place that could readily take care of him. The ride up to paediatrics was a short one, and before he knew it he was tapping the tip of his umbrella along splotches of colourful paint on the floor each colour leading to different areas of the ward. Crayoned drawings of varying skill were framed and placed upon the walls like priceless works of art. A mural of Road Dahl's Charlie And The Chocolate Factory covered the walls from floor to ceiling in front of the nurse's desk. Misshapen Oompa-Loompas surrounded him as stood in front of the desk, the young, chubby nurse with brilliant cherry red hair not looking up from her paperwork. 

"Can I help you?"

"I'm looking for the preemie nursery."

She looked down the hall but not at him, her blue pen pointing to her left. "Follow the purple splotches. You'll need to don a gown and wear gloves before you go into the room to prevent infection. If you have had a cold, fever or diarrhoea in the past week you are not permitted in the preemie nursery. Be sure to wear a mask and use the alcohol hand sanitizers provided."

She returned to her scribbling in her charts and Mycroft followed the purple blotches down the hall and to the left to the end of the corridor. Rooms full of ill children assailed him, and he tried to keep his focus on his goal, but it was difficult to ignore the chipped plaster in the walls and the fact that the children were housed four and five to a room to accommodate gender. Alpha children couldn't be placed in close proximity to one another lest their rough-housing harm the smaller Omegas in their midst. It was still a far cry from the busy wards of his own youth, but he had to wonder if the rate of infection became a problem here, and how diligently was the staff able to control it. Statistics, checks and balances weighed on the side of disease in his mind, for it was clear the entire ward, despite its cheerful coat of paint, was in dire need of new equipment and updated rooms.

He found the preemie nursery, shrouded in half light to keep its fragile occupants calm. He placed his coat and umbrella on the floor outside the room and donned the yellow gown, alcohol sanitizer used both before and after he put on the surgical gloves and ensured the wrists covered the cuffs of the gown in a firm seal. He tied on the surgical mask and only then did he enter the room, the soft hum of monitors and pulsing oxygen hidden beneath a stereo playing a hiss of static in the far corner. White noise. It was said to comfort babies, it made them feel as though they were still in the womb.

Molly hadn't been exaggerating when she said he would know which baby he was after, for she was larger than the other sickly specimens bottled up here, though clearly no less ill. A thick collection of tubes and wires covered her tiny body, with the cast on her arm so small it looked like gauze put on a toy doll. The push and pull of oxygen was measuring her breaths, and though her vitals were stable she was bruised in places an infant shouldn't be, her extremities still purple instead of pink.

"She's a real fighter, that one."

He turned to see an elderly nurse who had come in to check on hers small patients, her scrubs decorated with flowers. Everything on this floor was dedicated to cheer, a fervent nod to the power of positive healing. He wasn't sure it would be enough for this particular little waif who had been tossed out into the world like so much trash. 

"Didn't even care enough about you to make the Thames your grave," Mycroft said to her, and his odd statement made the nurse gawp at him in shock.

"Are you with social services?" she asked, giving him a good once over. "Terrible thing, what was done, it's a miracle she survived."

Pat, cliche things that are said in the face of human tragedy annoyed Mycroft, and the nurse's tired platitudes about how 'miraculous' it all was hummed like the white noise machine in Mycroft's ear. There was nothing miraculous about someone tossing a human being into the trash and the injuries that resulted from it. She wasn't left on a doorstep in hopes of a new life like a Victorian drama, she wasn't an orphan given to the pew of a church, wrapped in a warm blanket and given a note of love beneath her swaddled, pampered body. No, she was born and then thrown away, unwanted, unloved, a symptom of an apathy that he often wondered if he was also infected with.

She stirred, and he dared to reach through the incubator to touch her, her skin surprisingly warm. A glance at the chart affixed to her little plastic womb stated she was an Omega female, and Mycroft was surprised by this for surely the fight she had in her to live was more Alpha in origin? 

The knitted cap, donated by an untalented volunteer, slid off of her head, revealing a thick, silken shock of dark auburn hair. He reached in and fixed the cap back on her head, the knots of soft yarn a yellow circle with an orange line in the middle meant to resemble a duck but it instead made the cap look more like a bruised lemon. She curled into his touch, his hand trembling as he braced her entire head in his palm, unable to move away.

Mycroft Holmes is called the Iceman for a reason. He is the defining force when a country is in crisis and he knows where to deflect conflict where it will serve a better purpose for the world at large. He has prevented wars and at times has started them, and he is well aware that there is plenty of blood on his hands. The world revolves not on sentiment, but cold calculation and he is the measurement by which nations find their balance.

But here, right now, with his hand beneath her tiny head, Mycroft Holmes feels something thick and sharp rise within his throat and he can't swallow it down. For she is so warm and fragile and so absolutely perfect he can't imagine why anyone would abandon her so cruelly. This tiny little Omega, she has every right to fight for her place in the world. She has the right to challenge anything Mycroft's heartless analysis throws her way.

The oxygen tube slid from her face and Mycroft reached in with his free hand to fix it. He tried to pull away, only for a firm, resolute grip of surprising strength wrap around his thumb and pin him there.

His breath caught in his throat. And just like that it was official, that inner glacier that was his heart melted into a burgeoning sea of feeling that near drowned him with its impact. She was holding onto him. To *him*. Tethered to Mycroft Holmes, like he was the only one left in the world who could save her.

And oh, she was as smart as she was strong, for she had to know, in her instinctive, infant way, that there was no way he could walk away from a challenge like *that*.

"I will be in charge of her care from now on," he said to the nurse who was still in the room, checking vitals on a nearby preemie. She looked at him quizzically, and gave him a small, but cautious, smile at the way he was captivated by the injured baby, his hands gently moving over her and bringing her comfort. "The necessary paperwork will be brought to you tomorrow. If there is any change in her condition, I am to be informed immediately."

The nurse frowned. "I...I don't understand. Just who, exactly, are you?"

He forced himself to break free of the infant's spell and stepped away from her incubator. He didn't dare look back. He didn't know if he'd be able to leave.

"I am her parent," he said. He didn't look at the nurse as he peeled off the gown and tossed the rubber gloves into the bin provided outside of the room. He gathered up his coat and draped it over his arm as before, and placed his umbrella carefully in the crook of his arm.

"I am her parent," he repeated as he marched away, leaving the confused nurse watching after him as he left the nursery. "And she is a Holmes."


	2. mama bear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft drops the news about an addition to the Holmes clan and little Karma's arrival is a tad...dramatic.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's some pretty disturbing imagery in this chapter, and I do admit it went a tad Lynchian. We're are talking about weird animal/alien bodies, after all. Running with it! With scissors! :D

MOTHER OF ALL LEVERAGE  
chapter two

"You did WHAT??"

There was nothing more annoying than a puffed up, aggressive Alpha looking to piss on their territory, a reaction Mycroft had little patience for. His brother considered him family, yes, but he had no right to treat him like a territorial post. He was dismayed that his brother wasn't alone in his need to dominate, for both John and Sherlock railed against him. Sherlock was near frothing at the mouth in loud recrimination over his decision, heaving chest and growls pushing against the very idea. Mycroft with a child! And one without a shred of Alpha in it, or Holmes or Watson blood, just some sad, anonymous wastrel of indeterminate breeding, a miserable *mutt* of all things!

Mycroft buckled down hard on his cold exterior, for his soul was a boiling pot of fury hidden deep within his glacier persona. To even question the validity of her coming into his life! The nerve of his stupid brother!

Sherlock and John remained seated in their opposing chairs, glaring up at Mycroft as though he were an accused murderer set to be sent to the gallows. He remained cold and resolute, a trick he had cultivated for the express purpose of dealing with Alphas and one that long proved to be effective in boardrooms and family gatherings alike. A wall of unfeeling ice was the sole method he found kept him safe from the overbearing dominance he was forced to endure in both his working and family life, which were overwhelmingly Alpha. The persona he adopted had become a thick, Antarctic barrier over the years, his sense of self shivering in a secreted pocket of its lower hidden chambers, so buried beneath the ice and snow his mind cultivated for safety he'd nearly forgotten it was there.

Until now.

Until a tiny baby, struggling for life despite its cruelty, had literally fallen into his sphere of influence and had, with expert precision, cut into that glacier and yanked his warm softness out.

He felt bruised by the intrusion. He wasn't used to the sensation of vulnerability she inspired and it frightened him, the strength of these feelings increasing, exacerbated by his visits to the hospital and his personal monitoring of baby Karma's progress. Karma Holmes. He'd named her while he rode home from St. Bart's that fated night, thinking hard on her little fists and the way she curled into his palm when he'd touched her. He could feel the warmth of her even now, just thinking about it, the skin of his hand tingling with the pulse of her tiny body, helpless and yet determined, demanding that he help her.

"You don't know the first thing about babies!" Sherlock shouted at him from his throne, his long legs tucked beneath the chair and making his knobby knees poke upwards like a bend in a diseased branch.

Mycroft poked the tip of his umbrella into the dirty fibres of the worn carpet at his feet. He kept his head down, studying the odd pattern of it and inwardly remarking that the white blotches looked more like bird bones than flowers. "I think I have plenty of experience with babies, Sherlock, they just tend to be in larger packages than the one I'm taking home."

"He's got you there," John Watson agreed. But he raised a brow at Mycroft, just as full of insufferable Alpha judgement as Sherlock. "You know as well as I do, though, that this isn't the same sort of thing. When the baby gets annoying, and they inevitably do, it's not like you can just pawn it off when it suits you."

"Ah, like you mean how you do, utilizing the good nature of Mrs. Hudson, who is more than eager to scoop up Rosamund whenever your schedule gets a tad..." He waved at his brother and the detritus of cases littered all about the flat, "overbooked."

"Mrs. Hudson is the first to tell you she is neither our housekeeper nor our babysitter," Sherlock interjected.

"Clearly not," Mycroft said, giving his brother one of his thin, sarcastic smiles. "She simply likes the accouterments of those roles, which I assume is why she's always lurking about your flat with a broom and dustbin in one hand and a nappy in the other."

"A baby is a big responsibility," John reiterated.

Sherlock rolled his eyes and huffed a groan. "He *knows* this, John! Don't fret about it, we both know my passionless sibling has no desire whatsoever to wander into the role of Poppins, though I'm sure he's hired an adequate surrogate."

"Stands to reason," John thoughtfully agreed. "I'm sure, being the man Mycroft is, he's worked through that already. I'm guessing the old nanny route will suffice and a boarding school the second she's of age. Probably best for the little thing, really, he'd be more a benefactor than anything else, and that way he won't have to get his hands dirty." John nodded towards the end of the hall, where his own daughter was currently napping in the middle of Sherlock's bed. "No poo for you," he said to Mycroft. "Not to mention baby sick doesn't go well with Louis Vetton suits." 

Mycroft felt a sick lurch in his stomach at the very notion. "Don't be ridiculous, I'm not hiring a nanny."

"As if that's the foolish notion!" Sherlock exclaimed. "You can't possibly think you can handle a baby all on your own! I don't know what mad hormonal surge has muddled up your barren Omega mind, but you are hardly what one would call nurturing!"

Mycroft's ice was in full frost now and he turned it on Sherlock. "You will remember, brother mine, that our Alpha mother was too busy giving lectures on quantum polarization theories in every country in the world to be bothered changing your nappies, and she did not bother to hire a nanny because she had *me*."

"Oh here we go," Sherlock sighed. "Perhaps I should play a maudlin aria on my violin to accompany this familiar whine."

Mycroft was incensed. "I am seven years your senior and I remember well when you came into our home, how you were thrust into my arms and our dear, brilliant Mummy spat 'Finally, Mycroft dear, you can put those Omega instincts of yours to good use'. I do remember well, Sherlock, being isolated in that dreadful cottage estate throughout my so-called 'childhood', taking care of every scrape, every peevish misbehaviour, assisting you in your education and being watchful over you and lavishing you with my attention and yes, taking Mummy's place. As always, I must remind you that I raised you, Sherlock. Far more than she ever did."

Sherlock huffed at this. "Yes, well Father said..."

Oh, he was bringing that one into it, was he? Mycroft felt his ice descend into dangerous nitrogen territory, and it must have shown for John shrank a little in his seat, suddenly unwilling to be a part of this argument. "Father left us when you were two, Sherlock, he went to the Congo on an expedition and then never bothered to come home. His brand of parenting was sending Christmas cards and money orders in the mail in lieu of actual care, so no, don't you dare bring that coward into this!"

Sherlock gave his brother a sadistic smirk, knowing he'd found a particularly sore spot to pick. "Father said you were too young to be given that responsibility, and it's one of many reasons, I'm sure, that I went down the rabbit holes I did. Smacks of excuse to you, I suppose, and maybe it is, but it's a good one. A seven year old is hardly a good proxy for an actual mother, even if you are an Omega. You've always told me you are the smart one, a brilliance you had to create for yourself since Mummy wasn't going to waste time on you. I was her Alpha boy, nothing better in the world than that. You know as well as I that when I was school aged, suddenly everything changed, and she meddled in my teaching."

Mycroft softened slightly at this. "Yes. She undid quite a bit of my hard work."

"Work that you surrendered when you won a coveted spot at Oxford for their progressive Omega admissions program. Mummy was delighted, of course, she couldn't wait for you to get bonded off to some world renowned Alpha physics professor or some such rot. She's never forgiven you for forging your own mysterious career and keeping your knees clamped shut against an heir."

Mycroft rolled his eyes before pinching the pulsing headache brewing between them. Mummy still accused him of being a stubborn Omega spinster, that his life would be far more fulfilled if he didn't waste his time on his silly 'acquaintance' with a male Beta when only an Alpha for a Holmes would do. At every forced family gathering she was bold in her assertion that Mycroft's cold personality was due to not getting knotted every three months and was not, as he assured her, because he was an esteemed professional who knew damned well how to compartmentalize and it was all thanks to her.

"Karma," John said, out of the blue, the baby's name pondered over and repeated in a wincing whisper as though it held a bitter taste.

Sherlock steepled his fingers beneath his chin, fixing his brother in a firm, icy glare of his own. "Of course, all of this talk of Mummy and Father is just a ruse to obscure the real reason Mycroft has this fascination with this garbage chute changeling."

John coughed into his fist, uncomfortable with the murderous mood Mycroft was suddenly emitting. "That's a tad harsh of a description, Sherlock, it is a tragedy, really, that something awful like that happened."

"Jealous," Sherlock said.

Mycroft pressed his lips tight together, fury closing his throat.

John looked from Sherlock to Mycroft, confused. "I...What do you mean? What's he jealous of?" John let out a shocked chuckle that died on his tongue. "Not my baby, surely, not little Rosie?"

"He's got no progeny of his own. Might as well just get one at the market. I would have thought, Mycroft, you at least would have investigated pedigree first." Sherlock's eyes narrowed. "Or is that why you're here?"

Mycroft dug the tip of his umbrella deeper into the fibres of the worn carpet, making a new hole. "On the contrary, I don't want you to find out. In fact, I expressly forbid it. I came here to tell you of the arrival of my own child, and of course, I do not have your blessing but your criticism. I am not competing with you, John, no matter what madness my brother speaks. I am perfectly aware that Rosamund is a healthy baby, who started life that way and will continue to be strong and well loved. As far as mortality and long term physical and mental acuity go, I'm sure Rosamund will always be superior. Congratulations. You win."

An unhealthy pause settled over the dust in 221B. The three occupants remained rigid beneath it, ice blowing hard against the windowpanes, a draft unsettling a stringy cobweb. November was a harsh, unpleasant month, mired in the worry of holidays set to come and the ensuing family brawls that came with it. Sherlock was warning him. When it came to discussions of the baby's lineage, Mummy was set to be atrocious. Mycroft had to wield his power around her with care.

"Yes," Sherlock said, pensive. Lazy, long fingers framed his face. "Do you notice, John, that this victory makes you feel like shit?"

"Utterly," John admitted.

"My brother may not fully understand his own biology, but he certainly has an instinct for its manipulative ability. Notice how he's remained standing, though he's clearly leaning on his umbrella, the slight wince around his eyes and micro flashes of discomfort when he turns to the left. All evidence of the early stages of heat, which he was hoping would be enough to mollify our reaction to the very foolish idea of bringing a child that is not of our blood into the family fold. A scandalous prospect for any Alpha." Sherlock pursed his lips. "You're going to have to up your game, brother mine. Mummy will see straight through that attempt to guilt her, she has no conscience when it comes to society prejudices."

"I was just trying it on," Mycroft admitted.

John frowned at this exchange, confused. "I don't get it, it's not like we're in some Victorian melodrama here, it's the twenty-first century and last I looked a baby is a baby no matter the sex. I'm an Alpha and I really don't mind the idea of another baby in the mix, I have no instinctual competition against outsider offspring lurking in my genes, that crap has been disproved for ages. I mean, we're a prime example, Sherlock, Rosie's pretty much adopted by you and..."

"I have no objection to the poor child being a part of our clan, in fact if such a circumstance was presented to us I'd do the same thing."

John was confused. "Then why are you arguing against Mycroft adopting the baby?"

Sherlock looked at John as though he'd grown an extra head. "I'm not arguing against that, what kind of monster do you think I am? It's a baby, John, chucked into the world in the most vile manner possible, and you want to just watch the Iceman raise her without offering some manipulative question of his motives?" 

John sank further into his chair in a sloppy pose, a low groan leaving him. "So...What? Are we happy, then?"

"Of course we're happy!" Sherlock snapped. "We have another larvae to mould, and there's ample experiments of comparison and contrast between parenting methods that will prove mine are superior at every turn. Have you located the mother, Mycroft? From the impulsivity of the act, I would say she is young, possibly preteen and had hidden the pregnancy. I'm assuming the baby is an Omega."

Mycroft sighed, and nodded.

John, as ever, was still confused. "I don't understand..Why would her being an Omega make a difference?"

"They are fragile to start with, often sickly babies and requiring a lot of hospital visits. A frightened, unprepared teen mother who had hidden her pregnancy could hardly be relied on to take on that extra burden. She probably rationalized what she had done as an act of mercy, albeit a very twisted one." Sherlock glanced up at his brother. "I will find her."

"No!" Mycroft felt his gut lurch, a piercing pain so severe he nearly doubled over at the very thought. "I came here to have your assurance that you wouldn't! Sherlock this is very important to me!"

But Sherlock was firm. "I will find the birth mother, Mycroft."

Mycroft placed a splayed hand across his abdomen and pushed down on it, holding the stabbing pain he felt in. 

"You won't!"

"Mycroft..."

"She's mine!"

"Mycroft?" John's voice, soft and reasonable in the dusty sitting room. "Are you all right?"

Sherlock sighed, and the look he gave his brother had morphed into a strange mixture of annoyance and pity. "Biology, Mycroft. That is what is speaking through you right now, not your reason. There will never be a question she's your baby. You've already named her, a precious, cryptic name in the Holmes tradition and one that is suggestive of perception. As you are fond of reminding us all, you are the government and if you wanted to you could easily steal Rosamund out from under us. Not that you ever would, of course, but the facts are, Karma came into this world in a very violent way and the possibility of anyone getting in the way of you being her mother is nil."

"Then why look for her?" Mycroft said, and he hated the pleading that crept into his voice.

"Because you know that you aren't capable of doing it, biology and that infant's imprint on you is preventing you from investigating any imagined threat your subconscious may perceive. The logical part of you understands that the baby's birth mother may herself be in danger, and you feel a sense of responsibility. So, you may absolve yourself of it, Mycroft. I will handle it." 

The tension in 221B was suddenly diffused, but Mycroft still felt that stabbing pain, the heel of his palm practically digging into the lower edge of his stomach. 

John cleared his throat. "Karma a lovely name for an Omega girl. When do we get to meet her?"

"I'm taking her home tomorrow," Mycroft said. Damn, this pain! It had stretching spider legs that pulled across his midriff, like razors just under his skin. He spoke his words with care, making sure they weren't hitched. "I've been visiting her in hospital for over a month and she's finally healthy enough to leave."

"Have you seen her today?" John asked.

Mycroft's pained expression must have said enough, for surely the man knew, he was a doctor after all. Every moment he spent with Karma had strengthened the sense within himself that she was his, tight stitches of emotional DNA that were making it next to impossible for him to leave her in the hospital. Nurses carefully watched his interaction with her, worried he would impulsively snatch her up and escape from the hospital with her cuddled close to him, unable to let go. 

"Omegas have very strong connections to their babies," the elderly nurse in charge of the preemies on the pedes ward told him. It was her unlucky job to pry Karma from his needful, tight grip every night since he'd met her. "There's going to be a time, and soon, when you won't let me do this." She held Karma gingerly, careful not to cuddle her or show too much affection to her in Mycroft's tense, watchful presence. She was well trained in how to handle fragile Omegas who could be like pacing lions around their young. Mycroft was no exception.

"Taking care of sick babies is a special kind of work, especially with the way Omegas are. They bond good and fierce to their little waifs and not even death can cut through that. We've had it happen. Despairing Omegas breaking into the morgue to steal their baby's body. Back in the old days they'd force them to give them up, which caused a lot of unnecessary injuries. Alpha mates getting their eyes scratched out, that sort of thing. Now we got a special, locked room for it. It's called the Fae Box, and we let them hold them for as long as they like. The longest one took three months to convince the Omega to let the baby go. Looked like a wax doll wrapped in linen by the time we got it, like an Egyptian mummy. We all avoid the Fae Box, if we can. Grief that pure ain't easy to take."

He made in the hole in the carpet bigger, wishing he could be at the hospital, the ache within him growing by the second.

"It's just until tomorrow," John assured him, and Mycroft wondered if the flashes of pain he felt were now that obvious. John was giving him an insufferable pitying look, like he'd just found a kicked puppy, and Mycroft had to fight the urge to shove the tip of his umbrella through John's slipper clad foot.

"Tomorrow I will be the uncle to Karma," Sherlock said. He met his brother's pinched expression with one of mischievous glee. "Mummy will be livid."

A small portion of Mycroft's unease was healed by this and he couldn't help but crack a wide grin in response. "Oh yes. I'm sure she will be."

On that happy note, he made his leave, just in time too, since Mrs. Hudson was bringing up a tea tray and whistling an old Iron Maiden tune. She stopped mid step when she saw Mycroft at the top of the stairs, her whistle dying a slow, meandering death. "Hello Mr. Holmes," she said, cautious. "I only made tea for three. Sherlock, John and myself. The biscuits are for Rosie. Are you out or in?"

"I'm leaving," Mycroft assured her and began his descent, which forced her to back up a step. Annoyed, he walked back to the top of the stairs and bid Mrs. Hudson to finish her journey into 221B, which she did with her chin held high in coquettish victory. John stood beside Mycroft, hands loose in his pockets and standing far too close for comfort.

"Definitely on the start of a heat," John said, sniffing the air around him. He frowned, his sensitive Alpha nose detecting that Mycroft's chemistry was slightly off. Mycroft tried to move away, but John sniffed the air more deeply around him, not letting him free of his olfactory nosiness. "You're not on suppressants," John said. "But you have an elevated level of progesterone and I'm detecting relaxin. Odd. Must be on account of the baby, of course, though I'm not sure why you would be experiencing the latter, that's usually a third trimester development." John frowned. "Why were you in the hospital?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Why were you in hospital?" John repeated. "The day I saw you there, when there was that terrible bus crash and the baby..." John made an 'oh' sound that didn't quite leave his lips. "You were there when Lestrade brought the baby in."

"Exhaustion," Mycroft threw at him by way of explanation. "I don't profess to have a strong physique and as an Omega I do have a more delicate system than most. Long hours drain me. Lady Smallwood had me working on a disarmament deal that had many tangles that needed unravelling. I collapsed during a meeting."

"That's unfortunate," John said, but he was still frowning, still sniffing the air around him. 

"I will be taking extended leave," Mycroft hastily added. "For the baby, of course."

"For the baby." John chewed his bottom lip and Mycroft practically ran from him, heedless of the pain in his abdomen and the steep angle of the stairs. He glanced over his shoulder once to see John with his hands in his pockets, a worried expression on his face.

"Hunh," John said, and Mycroft opened the front door, grateful for his narrow escape.

***

An hour later he was locked in the second floor bathroom in his sprawling millions dollar mansion near Pall Mall, curled in a ball on the ceramic floor tiles, sobbing hysterically. 

"Hormones," he kept telling himself. "It's just hormones. The nurse told you this would happen, this happens every time, just...Just ride through it, you've done this before..."

Lies, all of it, for he'd never had a reaction like this, he'd felt sad, yes, irritable and unable to concentrate, but not this unbearable, hollow ache that encompassed every facet of his being. He couldn't understand it, he'd gone through this five times before, with barely a blip on his emotional radar, the feelings easily quashed with the distraction of work. He'd worked seventy-two hours straight the month after his third miscarriage, embroiled in a conflict between Russia and North Korea that resulted in him sending over fake engineers to ensure North Korea's arms race was halted in its tracks. He'd earned heart palpitations for his trouble, but the week long holiday trip to Greece with Greg afterwards had made it worth it. 

"Mycroft!"

Greg had such fun on that trip. He was so handsome with his dark tan, sporting burned in laugh lines around his sparkling, chestnut eyes that lit up every time Mycroft dared to give him a small smile back. Gregory Lestrade, always so easy to please, so comfortable in his skin, enough to make Mycroft topple, just a little, off balance from his own carefully controlled existence in order to allow a tiny portion of Greg's spontaneity in.

A fist was banging on the bathroom door. He couldn't get up. It hurt so much, everything hurts so much and he's empty and he aches, he can't stand it, he can't...

He knows people judge him harshly for it. A Beta and an Omega are a strange combination, and few have the imagination to understand how such a union could work. It was finally legal for such pairings to bond, the pressures against it societal and not at all biological. An Omega was supposedly meant to crave an Alpha and vice versa, to live for the knot while Alphas fed on their bondmate's adoration. Bullocks, all of it. His first experience with an Alpha male was nothing short of horrific, a mindless jock on the Oxford rowing team who had caught Mycroft's curious glances and thought that meant he was seeking a mate. It was during exam week of their final year, Mycroft was twenty-five and finishing off a double Ph. D. in political science and history while the Oxford Rower, as Mycroft forever referred to him in his memory, was doing his best not to get kicked off the team for using antihistamines during a race. 

"Mycroft, open the door!"

Oh, this hurts. It hurts as much as it did that first time, when he was drunk and young and stupid and the Oxford Rower was so handsome with his big biceps and wide grin and telling Mycroft how much he'd like to get to know him better, how he respects his brilliant mind and is fascinated by the way he smiles, like he's smirking all the time, and damn it was driving him crazy, and it was an unkindness, wasn't it, for an Alpha to leave an Omega in discomfort when it was obvious what he needed to do to help, and Mycroft had his final thesis to finish and he was getting distracted by the pain and it would be easy, and the Oxford Rower was good looking and he smelled so good and he thought, maybe, he kind of liked him, and then...and then...

And then it was awful. 

When it was over, what felt like hours later, the Oxford Rower had thanked him for a good time. "Maybe we could do that again, yeah?" And see you around, and are you coming back here next week? You'd look nice on my arm and blah, blah, blah. Boring, stupid and vain. He'd let that prat have him and Mycroft felt sickened at the way his body ached and how the knot had been painful and unpleasant, locking him to the Alpha who had little interest in anything other than his own pleasure. The only good that came of it was that his heat symptoms were instantly cured so he'd managed to write his thesis and hand it in well before the deadline and of course was awarded his doctorate as well a published paper.

He could see his hand, splayed across the cold ceramic tile, every finger shaking. He knew what would ease this, and it wasn't some idiot Alpha's knot, it was the sweet smelling little body that fit against his like a soft, bundled parcel. He squeezed his eyes shut and could see her, wriggling in her little plastic womb with wires monitoring every pump of her heart and every breath she took, and he wanted to take her out of it and hold her. Then this pain would go away, his tremors would instantly subside, he just wanted her with him, that was all, that could cure him. Karma. 

His baby. He wants his baby.

The door to the washroom was forced open and Lestrade stood breathless in its frame, quickly taking in Mycroft curled in the foetal position on the floor, howling sobs wracking his body in tight spasms. "Hey." Lestrade's touches were as light as gossamer, wary, as though he thought Mycroft would shatter into nothingness. "Hey. I'm here. Mycroft. I'm here."

Soft touches, a calloused hand petting the side of his face, his hair. The ceramic floor gave way and Mycroft was in Lestrade's lap, staring up at the detective's worried face. He brought an unsteady hand to Lestrade's cheek, his choking sobs ebbing into softer weeping. 

"What's going on, Mykie?"

He hasn't told him about her. He was too afraid of Greg's reaction to the news, unable to face the fact that Greg may not want his precious Karma, a decision that Mycroft had made without his input. They'd been a partnership of sorts for so long he hadn't wanted to threaten it and now...Now he was here and he had nothing and it *hurts*...

Just like that, the words were out before he could control them, his actions happening outside of his own influence. He clutched his fist around Greg's shirt collar, bunching it into a white knuckled grip. 

"I want my baby."

Greg's worried expression instantly changed into one of intense sadness. "Oh, Mykie. I'm so sorry. Again? Aw, bloody hell..." 

The sobbing started anew and he couldn't stop it. His body was separated from his mind, with his rational thoughts compartmentalized and locked away in a cell within his ice palace while his usually shuttered emotions were now running headlong into pure madness. He knew that Greg's arms around him were supposed to feel good, the sound of his voice a calming balm that never failed to bring his reason back. No one knew about this, about these little breakdowns that coincided with his heat, with his losses. Not even Sherlock had suspected. It was this Beta who had made sure of that, his Gregory Lestrade, calm, strong and soft, holding him close and offering soothing words while he drew a bath. He could feel his clothes being stripped, the smell of lavender faintly perfuming the air. 

"We'll get you cleaned up, yeah? A nice relaxing soak always does you wonders. Aw, Mykie, why didn't you tell me?" Greg's lips, soft as velvet on his forehead as he lavished him with gentle caresses. "Pretty bad this time, hunh? How many months along were you?"

He felt the shock of warm water on his skin, meant to be soothing but it instead was jarring, waking his rational mind. Lestrade wasn't understanding. He was locked onto a tragedy that had been replayed too many times for Mycroft to register more than cold disappointment. "J-Just a month," he managed to say and Lestrade gave him a slightly confused and pained look at this, and Mycroft's panic began to rise. "You don't understand...I need my baby...In the hospital...I want to go to the hospital, I need..."

"You're really in a bad way." Lestrade ran a cloth over Mycroft's arm, and then his shoulder, bathing him with airy touches that meant to soothe, and in the past always did. "Just lay back and relax, all right? I got you. I always do."

The empty, spider legged hurt shot through his back and his stomach, and Mycroft howled as it took him over, all semblance of sanity gone. He could only see that empty space in his arms where Karma was supposed to be, and he was screaming now, curses thrown at a stunned Lestrade, demanding he get him out of here, right now! The hospital! The baby is at the hospital you moron! Dammit, what was wrong with him, standing there soaked and covered in bubbles, his mouth gaping open like a suffocating fish! 

He tried to get out of the tub and couldn't, his limbs not wanting to obey his rational mind. He could hear his wrist crack as he slipped out of the tub and tried to brace his fall. Reason was gone. Emotion had taken over and it wanted to wallow in sorrow and pain and it didn't matter that Lestrade looked absolutely terrified and was huddled against the open bathroom door, his cell phone pressed tight against his ear.

"Yeah, John, it's me. Look, there's something seriously wrong. I'm glad for the heads up about the heat and all, but this isn't like anything I've ever seen before, he's just right off the bloody rails. He's scaring the shit out of me, to be honest." There was a long pause while John spoke on the other end, and Mycroft tried to swallow his sobs, his rational mind clamouring for data while his emotional one demanded, reacted, and tore through his consciousness like a wailing demon, refusing to allow him to compile simple facts.

"I don't know what else could be doing this, I mean, he keeps going on about going to the hospital and getting a damned baby, mad as a bloody hatter, am I right? I don't know what he's on about, I mean it's gone, it's been gone for a month at least."

No. No. No. No. 

His emotional mind grabbed hold of his consciousness and though he could still feel the steam of the bath and he could still hear Lestrade's voice, like a vast distance away, talking to John on the cell phone, Mycroft was no longer at home.

He was in a dark room, with grey walls lined with pictures of dead and wilting flowers. There were empty rocking chairs with broken arms. and a stained playpen in the far corner, obscured in shadow.

In his arms was a bundle with a familiar weight.

The bundle was wrapped in black garbage bags.

No. No.

He tore the garbage bag open, trying to find her, only to find more of the opaque plastic. There was nothing in his arms, only the black plastic bags, and the horrific realization that he was trapped in the Fae Box and he didn't want to be here, it couldn't be true, his baby was coming home, she was being given to him tomorrow but he can't wait that long he needs her here tonight, tonight, tonight...

"What baby?"

As shocked realization dawned on Lestrade, Mycroft made a move to get up, only to have pain shoot up his arm as he leaned on his hand and he fell back onto the ceramic floor with a loud thud. He understood that he was being wrapped in a towel, that words were being spoken, but he could make no sense of them. He could barely register where he was, and the howling pain was doing all it could to send its nasty needles throughout his body and mind.

A cold piece of metal was pressed against his ear and he frowned at the sound of John Watson's voice, shoving through his psychosis as though it were on a loudspeaker.

"Mycroft, listen carefully.

You're experiencing *symbiosis dementia previa*, or SDP, it's a condition that affects Omegas who are separated from their newborns, usually happens if they don't get to see their baby right after birth, but obviously, there can be a lot of different factors that can bring on this sort of thing. So, in your case, I'm going to explain it best I can." John took a deep breath. He could hear Sherlock nagging in the background, begging to know what Mycroft was saying. John reminded Sherlock that it was highly unlikely Mycroft could even understand what John was telling him let alone make coherent speech. "Mycroft? You don't have to talk, in fact don't try to, I just need you to listen."

"SDP," his rational mind wrote down and his emotionally wrecked self let out a tortuous sob.

"Lestrade tells me you had a miscarriage about a month ago, and that was the real reason you were in hospital that day." John's voice was muffled again at Sherlock's interjection. There was a lot of bumping and static as the phone's speaker was blocked by John's palm inexpertly muting it. "For God's sake, Sherlock, it was none of your business anyway, can you just hail the damned cab! Yes, I've called the hospital, they're on skeleton crew tonight on account of the flu outbreak, it might take a while." There was a protracted sigh and then John's voice was back in crystal clarity in Mycroft's ear. 

"Mycroft..."

"I need my baby."

"I know you do, and I've already called the hospital and she is on her way, just breathe. Did you hear me, Mycroft? She's on her way."

A pitiful cry left Mycroft's throat, and he clung to the cell phone pressed to his ear as though it were his final lifeline. 

"Hey, we'll get you off the floor and to bed, all right? Keep talking to John. That's right, love, just listen."

His vision was blurred though he understood the layout of his house, his steps unsteady as he leaned on Lestrade for support. He clung to specific phrases John was using, their significance paramount. "She's on her way." "She's okay, she'll be there soon."

"I think with the way you connected with her not long after your miscarriage, coupled with how ill she was, Karma became a proxy. Being told she was coming home tomorrow sent some pretty clear signals to your biology. You are reacting exactly the way an Omega who has just given birth does, Mycroft, and this is clearly one hell of a difficult delivery." 

He could hear the door of a cab slam shut and Sherlock giving instructions to the driver, to make it as quick as he could to Pall Mall and he'd be well compensated for it. On the British government's tab. "I could kick myself, really." John said. "You were giving signals all during your visit that this could happen. You were edgy, in physical discomfort, your body chemistry was off, every time we talked about the baby you got defensive, you came to Sherlock with that unspoken request...I didn't think you would have been capable of that kind of deep bonding, but I was wrong, and I'm sorry." There was a ding on the line and John went quiet for a moment, only to return far more animated. "That was Molly, she has the baby and she's en route, she'll be at your door any minute." John's voice carried the smiling cadence of relief. "Yeah, just breathe deep, okay? Any minute now. Put Lestrade back on for me, just for a second, you're okay now, the baby's on her way."

Mycroft let the phone drop and Lestrade picked it up. "Yeah, he's tucked into bed as best I could get him in it, I think he might have hurt his wrist when he fell out of the damned bath so if you could give him a once over when you get here." Lestrade frowned. "Won't be able to get near him? What do you mean?"

He hung up the cell and went back into the bathing room. When he came back into the bedroom he had a flesh coloured bandage in his grip. A tensor, Mycroft's rational mind registered. Lestrade gingerly inspected his wrist, its small circumference swollen and red. He wrapped the injured wrist in the tensor bandage, securing it with a metal clasp. 

"John said things are going to get real weird when the baby gets here. Not sure they aren't weird enough already. I can't believe you did this to me, Mycroft, throwing me for a loop like this, I deserved to know, I could have been way better prepared." He sighed, and kissed Mycroft's sweating temple. "But there's no point arguing it right now, not when you're in a state like this. It's a nice surprise, don't get me wrong, but...Jesus, Mykie. Way to throw me under a bus."

The dull ache in his wrist felt better, and Mycroft could feel himself lean towards Lestrade, craving the soft touches and gentle reassurance he always offered. He wanted to curl into him, even if he was still wandering the tightrope of madness. The constant mantra that his baby was on her way soothed him and he was able to allow Lestrade to wrap his arms around him, the warmth a welcome against his shivering form.

The front doorbell rang. Mycroft was dazed as Lestrade instructed him to stay in the bedroom, that he would be right back. He could hear the front door unlatch and the sound of Molly's voice drifted up to the second floor, sending Mycroft's senses into a tailspin of overkill. 

He could smell her. His baby was here, his baby...

"Where's the bedroom?" Molly's voice was clipped, all business, the scent of his child was approaching closer and he was out of the bed now, unsteady on his feet and heedless of how well his bathrobe covered him. "We have to be careful." she said to Lestrade. "He's very dangerous to us in this state."

"What do we do?" Lestrade asked.

Molly marched into the bedroom. The baby carrier was in her hands.

She set the baby in the carrier on the floor, her eyes and Mycroft's locked in a tense standoff.

My baby.

Mine.

He watched her every move, watched as she lowered the baby carrier to the floor, being careful not to touch the infant, an impatient hand smacking away Lestrade's as he tried to reach down and release the clasps that were holding the baby in. 

"He's looking at me real weird."

"He's seeing us both as potential threats."

"Molls, that's nuts, he knows I'd never harm him or a baby."

"Inspector, he is not in his right mind, he is an Omega with a newborn, and I suggest if you want to keep your eyes you will continue backing up slow, slowly..."

"Mycroft? Baby's here, yeah? You all right?"

Molly whipped around, her hand clasped on Lestrade's arm, preventing him from reaching out yet again. "Will you stop! Seriously, have you never seen Animal Planet? Monster Omega Mamas? We can't be in this room!"

There was a sudden din downstairs as Sherlock and John entered the house, causing enough of a distraction to allow their escape. The bedroom door was slammed shut behind them, and Mycroft was left alone with Karma.

Oh. 

Oh the blessed relief!

With fumbling hands he undid the clasps holding her in the baby carrier and collected her up into his arms, the weight of her a miracle after his hours long ordeal. He smelled her, breathing her scent in deeply and imprinting on her his own. She was sweet and pink and perfect, startling at the way he nuzzled her stomach with his nose and held her, skin to skin, against his chest. 

The endorphins rushing through his system gave him a sense of shocking power, and he had no doubt that if even Moriarity and his entire criminal network descended upon the house, Mycroft would easily, and coolly, obliterate every last one. 

He had a sudden, unbidden image of eating their desecrated corpses, and though the image was hypothetical he felt rather disappointed that he couldn't follow it through.

He really was that hungry.

What he did know, with shocking certainty, was that this child would never suffer as he had, she would never have the weight of responsibility drowning her at too young an age. She would never have to endure maternal begging that she find a proper Alpha to bond with. She would be independent, strong, full of the confidence that was necessary when dealing with the bullying tactics of roomfuls of Alphas. If she grew up and had a Beta lover, Mycroft would obviously understand. He certainly understood the benefits of his Gregory.

He frowned, thinking on him, the strange muddle of his thoughts gradually ebbing into calm. A bit crazy that she had to be here tonight, he'd been so convinced she was in danger and it was all psychosis, worst case scenarios played ad nauseam in his mind until he broke. It wouldn't be a bad thing for Gregory to meet her, and Sherlock and John could come in too, and Molly, why not.

But an animal part of him suddenly intruded on these thoughts and he violently attacked them in his mind, ripping Sherlock to shreds and gauging out John Watson's wide,horrified eyes with his fingers. This was his baby, no one could come near her, she was *his*.

That he was willing to kill anyone who came near at present seemed a perfectly logical response. 

But here, in his bedroom, it was safe and warm and his infant was a delight in his arms, so helpless and needful and yet comprised of an overwhelming amount of love, enough that it overflowed and flooded all of Mycroft's carefully constructed ice barrier and filled it with a burning blue flame of care instead.

He barely registered the front door opening yet again, or the argument that brewed downstairs and the strict instructions: "Don't go in there!" being summarily ignored. Clipped heels climbed the stairs leading to the second floor and Mycroft felt a twisting bolt of rage well within him that some...*thing*...was daring to intrude on this special moment with his child, who was now fretting in his arms instead of remaining the calm perfection he knew she was. 

That *thing* had caused an expression of consternation upon his infant's tiny brow.

Hellfire doesn't always run hot. It can be nitrogen, a burning frost that severs limbs.

The bedroom door opened. "Mycroft, we need you. North Korea may have gotten hold of a smart bomb and Dennis Rodman isn't answering our calls, we think he may be acting as a double agent."

But Lady Smallwood did not get the usual, tired assurance that the Mycroft Holmes she knew would offer. She had never met this Mycroft Holmes, the one riding on Omega fuelled hormones that destroyed his reason and put animal instinct in its place. She had been warned. Every idiot knew basic biology. Alphas liked strutting with their cocks out over everything, confident the world would bend to whatever whim they fancied, and sadly the world mostly did. Betas were calm, a little boring, but they were secretly running the show, kind and eager to help and, if the rest were like Lestrade, devastatingly good lovers. And Omegas...

Well, you just didn't get in the way of an Omega and their newborn child. Ever.

It was too late by the time Lady Smallwood started screaming.

Sherlock was the one who pulled her out before more damage was done. As it was, it was extensive. Bone sheared through skin like a fragmented tree branch. The look of it actually made Sherlock gag. It was one thing to see it on a corpse, but on a screaming, living being? Ew.

Molly Hooper quickly got to work and realigned the bone to set it and that was a whole new horror show. Sherlock could hear Lady Smallwood's screams in his head for months.


	3. hormonal surge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mycroft and Greg and baby make three.

MOTHER OF ALL LEVERAGE  
chapter three

He held the now familiar breakfast tray in his hands and tried not to drop it. His hands felt clammy as he clutched its handles. He knew the Omega behind the closed door was hungry, that he was bonding with his new baby and no one if they had half a brain should be stupid enough to wedge themselves in the way of that kind of special union. A week had passed, and Molly assured Greg that the high levels of adrenaline and a bunch of other hormones with long names and numbers attached to them were going to ebb low enough for Greg to get closer to them both without the risk of being injured.

He couldn't stop thinking about Lady Smallwood's broken arm. Bile, unbidden, rose within his throat, and he forced it down with a thick swallow.

As it was, it was a miracle he'd been allowed to enter the room at all, bearing trays of calorie rich meals that Mycroft devoured like an animal, not even using the utensils half the time, his fingers digging into his steak and ripping it apart, the gravy licked from fingertips as he shovelled the meat into his snarling maw. Lestrade was only permitted quick glances at the baby tucked under Mycroft's arm, the Omega's ice blue eyes in the exact shade of a wolf's piercing Lestrade with predator threat if he dared to let his curious glance linger too long.

Molly Hooper had given him the crash course in Mycroft's care, but it wasn't enough, the Omega's needs were so alien he kept wondering when the time would come he'd take a fatal misstep and Mycroft would, literally, bite his head off.

"That's not Mycroft in there, that's an Omega with their baby." Molly explained that first night, John and Sherlock near dozing on the living room couch while Lady Smallwood continued to moan in agony. "You go in that room with the full understanding that you are sharing space with a hungry jungle cat." Molly had handed him the tray full of food and nodded up the stairs leading to the bedroom. "Don't look at the baby, don't linger hoping to find a trace of your lover, don't touch him, and for God's sake, don't touch anything at all that belongs to the baby." She gestured to the whimpering form of Lady Smallwood cradling her heavily bandaged arm. "Let what happened to her be a lesson to you. Omegas usually go for the eyes first, she's lucky it's just a nasty break. I'm taking her to the hospital, she's going to need some serious surgery to put that arm back together properly. Lots of pins and needles."

Greg stared at the contents of the tray. A mostly raw massive steak, three poached chicken breasts, boiled eggs, some slices of ham. Basically, any meat Molly could find in the fridge she'd whipped together and plopped onto a plate. There was no cutlery, though there was an aluminium water bottle filled with ice. "Molls, what is this? He lives on salad and cake, he's not used to eating heavy protein crap like this."

"Omega nursing diet," she said. She picked up her coat and slid it on over her small shoulders, which were surprisingly strong as she hauled Lady Smallwood to her feet and braced the groaning woman's weight on them. "That and more, pure animal protein, three to four times a day. If he's hungry, you get him what he wants, immediately. You don't want him leaving that room this week. If he has to go to the loo, he's got the en suite, so lucky there. Keep the room clean, take out the old tray, but never before bringing in a new one. If there's laundry, discreetly take it out, same with anything soiled lying around, he's going to be pretty hyper-focused on that baby so...Some hygiene does tend to go out the window, just giving you the warning."

That last bit hadn't been a problem, luckily, even in his feral state Mycroft was fastidiously clean. He had a habit of licking the plates and then licking his hands and arms, making sure there was no trace of food or dirt on himself or the baby, and only after this would he pick up the baby and, much to Greg's utter shock, bring her to breast. He made sure to scurry out before witnessing that. He weren't no prude, he knew what breasts were actually for, but damn...Mycroft doing *that*. It was so against the man's usual fussy sensibilities and little quirks, he didn't even like nipple play for fuck's sake.

Who, or what, the hell was this thing holed up in that room?

So, after a week of utter terror, watching the man who had been his lover on and off again for the past ten years or so devolve into a predator that would make a Neanderthal cower, Lestrade carefully placed the tray of thick steaks and a whole, mostly raw chicken on the edge of the bed and began his usual terrified inching away towards the bedroom door.

Mycroft frowned at the tray of food he'd been left with. "Really, Gregory is it so difficult to bring me tea?

The unexpected lucidity was enough to make Lestrade near faint. "I...I can get that for you. If you...If you'd like..."

"Of course you can, you always do when we are cohabiting for any length of time, and especially during this time of day. Have you seen my papers? All I have is an old copy of The Daily Mail and for some reason it's strewn all over the floor leading into the en suite." He sniffed his pillow, and made a disgusted face. "Ugh. This room is manky. I feel crusty and disgusting. I need to shower."

Mycroft tossed the bedcovers to one side, giving a cursory glance at the sleeping infant bundled like a little cocoon on the spot beside him. He smiled softly at her, and gave her squished little red face a gentle kiss on her forehead before sliding off of the bed and discarding his bathrobe. He tossed it in the nearby laundry hamper. He gave Gregory a cursory glance before entering the en suite. "Be sure to watch her, won't you?"

And just like that, he stepped into the en suite and shut the door behind him. The sound of running water erupted through the room. Clean steam escaped from under the door.

Gregory stared at the little bundled larvae on the bed and wondered if this was some crazy predator trick to turn him into lunch. He dug into his pocket for his cell phone and frantically dialled John.

It was answered on the first ring. "Greg? Everything all right?"

"No," Greg said, keeping his voice a low whisper and hoping against hope that Mycroft couldn't overhear him over the hot running water. "He's taking a shower."

"That's....Normal?"

"He's left the baby with me. She's sitting pretty right here in front of me, right in the centre of the bed. He's closed the bathroom door and everything! I don't know what the hell to do! Tell me what to do!"

"I...I guess you could pick up the baby."

"You guess? John, I could really use more confidence about that right now. I'd like to keep breathing if that's all right with you!"

Sherlock's voice echoed across the cell phone, distant but insistent in John's space. "Tell him the worst of it is over! Mycroft's bonded to the baby, there's nothing to worry about now. He's leaving the infant in your care so you'll do just that. Care for it. Alphas do this all the time. Change its nappy, give it a bath, make sure the bedding is clean, that sort of thing. And cuddle it or something, I think that's what people do."

Leave it to Sherlock to pick at the nagging point that he wasn't an Alpha and thus didn't have all the biological autopilot that would be in perfect sync with his Omega. Alpha and Omega couples did this sort of thing on a regular basis, they mated and had kids and didn't kill each other over it, and when it was time to reconnect they just...Knew. But Greg had a huge blind spot being a Beta, and the nag that Mycroft could walk out of that shower, squeaky clean and pretty, and see Gregory holding his precious infant and...Well, he was going to be torn up meat, that's what was going to happen. Hamburger Lestrade. With a side of tripe and sweetbreads.

"You need to pick up the baby, Greg," John said, firm. He was a bloody mind reader now. "Make sure she is in your arms when Mycroft comes back into the room. Alphas also bond with their children in a very fierce way and you are now in that stage of relational development. Not picking up the baby could signal to Mycroft that you are not only not interested in the child, you are also a threat. And you don't want that."

"Hell no," Gregory said. He tucked the phone between his ear and his neck and approached the baby. God, just touching the little thing made his heart race like it wanted to take off out of his chest. He took a few good solid breaths, bracing himself first, before he leaned down and scooped her up into his arms.

She remained blissfully asleep.

"I'm holding her," Gregory said to John. "I don't know what the fuck I'm doing, but I'm holding her. He won't go psycho killer on me now, right?"

"I'm not sure," John said. "These rules apply to Alphas and Omegas, I can't say for certain that they'll follow for a Beta parent too. There's not enough information on these sorts of pairings, they've be operating underground for a long time. It was only made legal last year."

"You're no help at all, John," Gregory snapped, and he hung up the cell and tossed it on the bed where it bounced off of the edge and onto the floor. He thought about picking it up, but the little bundle in his arms squirmed and instantly his full attention was on her needs. It was suddenly very important that Mycroft didn't walk out of that en suite and find her crying in his arms.

He sat on the edge of the bed and began to rock her, the movement soothing her enough to bring her back into blissful sleep. He sighed in relief, but he kept rocking, his gaze riveted on the way she had a similar crinkle in her brow to Mycroft's, and even the way she was pursing her lips, as though she was right pissed off at some hidden problem. He couldn't help but smile at that, and he dared to tickle her chin a little to see if she'd make his 'Sherlock is being tedious' face. She did.

"Well aren't you the cynical little monkey?" he said to her, and he found he rather liked the way she felt in his arms, and the little faces she was making that were both so familiar and fascinating in their new environment.

A kid. They had a kid. After all these years...

Nah mate, his mind corrected him and Gregory Lestrade felt his heart suddenly drop. You don't have no kid, he does. He went and got her on the sly, didn't he, didn't even ask if you wanted to be a part of the plan, he doesn't even care, really, if you are. He wanted her, he was in that hospital that day and he'd had another loss and then those kids came in all battered up and Mycroft was in the middle of it all. And then you walked in, didn't you, you sap. You came in with a sick, hurt baby and he looked at that little tossed out jewel and thought 'I want that', and this is where we are.

He knew that's what was running through the animal portion of Mycroft's mind, an infant to replace the many he'd lost, and as usual the selfish bastard wasn't thinking about the extended portion of this. Because it wasn't Mycroft who brought this baby into the world, even if his biology went and insisted he did and forced him into feral mode. It was DCI Gregory Lestrade who sat in the back of a panda, telling Anderson to gun it to Saint Bart's, his fingers pressing on the tiny chest in fast compressions. He was the one who had her breathing when they made it into the emergency. He was the one who wouldn't wait for an ambulance to weave its way through the mess of backed up traffic, and he was the one who soothed her when she finally began crying, who set her broken arm best he could with his tie.

He'd gone back to Bart's a few times a week, asking after her. He was a Beta and the baby was an Omega and the nurses and front desk clerks didn't take his enquiries into her health as seriously as they would have if he and Mycroft had been the typical Alpha and Omega pair. He'd had this baby, too. He'd been worried about her since that fateful day when he'd found her at her worst and brought her back from that fatal precipice. He was proud of that, the little bundle in his arms making him damn near burst with the heady triumph of it. She was his just as much as she was Mycroft's.

"I'm going to make sure you got everything in the world," Gregory said to her, and he kissed her tiny forehead. Her annoyed expression, so much like Mycroft's when he was talking to John, instantly eased.

The door to the en suite finally opened and Mycroft stepped out of the steam, looking and smelling significantly more human. He dried off with a fluffy white towel and then tossed it into the hamper on top of his bathrobe. "I stacked up all of those papers before I took a shower, they can be bundled and put to the curb." He rummaged through his drawers and, yawning, he took out a pair of cotton striped pyjama bottoms and put them on. He slid the matching shirt over his shoulders, but he didn't button it up.

"I can take her now, Gregory."

"Just another minute, please. I haven't had a chance to properly meet her now she's doing good and...God, Mykie, she really is a lovely little thing, isn't she?"

"Of course she is, she's a Holmes," Mycroft replied dispassionately. He smiled over Greg's shoulder at the tiny bundle in his arms, smelling of lavender and baby powder. Though the bedroom still had an animal taint to it, Mycroft was clearly working at scrubbing it away, his hands busily tearing off the sheets on the bed and bundling piles of laundry, along with tutting displeasure at the crumbs in his expensive carpet and the half empty mugs of water scattered across the top of his antique dresser. "Really, Gregory, was it so hard to keep this place tidy while I was adjusting to the baby? It's like a pack of dogs was set loose in here." He yawned and as he moved towards the detective, who was now standing. Lestrade, with the baby still in his arms, took a few steps back.

"You really should have told me about this," Lestrade said.

Mycroft shook his head, annoyed at Lestrade's ire. He held out his arms to take the baby. "I think you've held her long enough."

"This is my baby too, Mykie." Lestrade surprised himself with how deep his voice became, dropping into a growl he usually reserved for the suspects he grilled in his interrogation room. "Look, I know we've had a rough go of it over the years. I'd be a right bastard if I couldn't see how hard it was for you every time you lost one. It put a real strain on us, I get that, I mean, biology and all and being an Omega you got needs I can't fulfill for you and if you trot off once in a while and get some Alpha to get you properly satisfied, well, I was okay with that. I can't get in your head and know what you're thinking, or what your body is demanding, I'm a Beta and we're not built that way. If I was an Alpha, I could have been in this room with you on the second day, that's what Molls told me. I could have helped you more if I was an Alpha, but I'm not and things had to be rearranged different, at least for this."

The baby squirmed in his grip and he adjusted her in his arms, daring to nuzzle his nose against the soft fuzz of her downy head of hair. She smelled delightful, a lot like Mycroft and a little bit like Pears soap. His fingertips brushed against the tiny cast on her broken arm and he felt a thick stone of emotion wedge itself in his throat. "This changes all of that, Mykie. This baby, our baby, she's the most important thing now and we have to get our shit together and make sure that she knows it. So, here's the deal. You're not fucking around with any occasional Alphas and I'm not fucking around with any flirts on the side, either. We're a family now, things got to be solid."

Mycroft stood beside him, tense but expectant. He placed a slightly trembling hand on Lestrade's shoulder, the very press of his palm sending an electrified jolt through Lestrade's body. "I never cared for any Alpha, and I have been faithful to you save for the times I told you, which amount to about three pathetic dalliances, all of which coincided with rather serious losses. I was..." Mycroft's voice shook and Lestrade could only watch as confession washed over him, the pain of it tensing his muscles, twisting his face into knots. "I wanted to give you a family. They were always non-viable when we mated and I thought it was perhaps due to you being a Beta, but not even Alpha donors worked and..."

Lestrade's eyes widened at this. "Donors?"

Mycroft hesitated. "That's how I saw them."

Little Karma began to fuss and Lestrade hushed her, rocking her in his arms as he digested what Mycroft had told him. How many years they had wasted by not communicating the simplest of facts, the angst he'd felt that Mycroft had basic needs he couldn't fulfill, the one night stands he'd taken in retaliation against the aloof way Mycroft treated him at times, as though what they had was something curious and comfortable but never permanent. "You bloody bint," he said to Mycroft, who remained as stone as ever save for that tremble in his shoulders that made him seem fragile, a pile of loose plaster ready to crumble. "All these years we wasted, me thinking this was just some lark."

"It was never that for me, Gregory."

The baby began to fuss anew and Lestrade hushed her as Mycroft stepped close and leaned against Lestrade's side, his head resting on the detective's shoulder. "You are and have always been my solid constant. I have no true concept of what love is other than its rudimentary components. I feel affection for you, often passion. To imagine you no longer in my life leaves a hollow sensation within that scenario and it is not one I like to visit. Alphas and Omegas talk of bonds, but the feeling I have for you transcends this for it is of my choice and not solely a whim of my biology. Personally, I feel such beliefs are myths. No Alpha has come close to the sensations you bring out in me. I feel very deeply for you, Gregory. So much that your loss would destroy me."

He pressed his lips onto Mycroft's cool forehead and finally allowed the baby to go back into the Omega's arms, her tiny face pressed softly against the bare skin at Mycroft's heart. He kissed Mycroft again, on the lips, the soft, dry insistence stirring a latent interest within him. He pulled away with effort. Bloody hell, if Mycroft wasn't intoxicating! He wanted to kiss every inch of his bared skin, to nibble on parts that would make him moan. Mycroft blushed as Lestrade encircled his arms around him, the heat of his body a further hint of arousal.

Lestrade nipped at Mycroft's neck all the way up to his ear. "How's about I make that tea, then?" he whispered into it.

~*~  
Now draped in a silk robe, the striped flannel pyjamas beneath it, Mycroft paced across his living room organizing the finer details of his life while Gregory got busy making breakfast. It was much simpler fare than the carnivore needs earlier in the week, buttered toast and tea and a side of jam, the simple starches a nice relief against the meaty carnage that had gone on all week. Though he didn't particularly need it at this point, Lestrade couldn't stop himself from fussing over Mycroft, ensuring his tea was hot but not scalding, his sugar exactly two measured teaspoons. A mere drop of milk. A prettily arranged slice of toast cut into triangles with a slice of orange on the side. A fat brown betty teapot on a tray, ready to top up his delicate, flowered ceramic teacup. Mycroft acknowledged the effort with a gentle smile, one that made Lestrade's heart beam in pride over how he'd snagged this rather pretty little Omega with his dainty features and equally precious mannerisms.

Karma was softly snoring in her bassinet which was now perched on the sofa beside Mycroft. A cell phone was pressed tight against his ear. "Yes, I understand that matters have gotten quite out of hand over the last week, but circumstances beyond my control have dictated that I will need much more time. Two to three months, to be exact." Mycroft frowned at the flurry of high pitched arguments spewing through his phone. "Korea may still be a problem, Anthea, but it is one that will simply have to wait. From what I understand Rodman is on it, and I don't care if Smallwood and the Round Table is upset, I fully intend to take my leave." He groaned in frustration at Anthea's increasing panic. "*Maternity* leave, of course, I am entitled to it!" He frowned. "Lady Smallwood need not be so Draconian, she is well aware I've been indisposed for the last week and the turmoil of a new life in one's home is something she is simply going to have to respect. I will return in two months. That is all, Anthea."

He hung up on her continued protests, and traded the cell phone for a relaxing cup of tea. Lestrade joined him on the couch, though his mug was full coffee rather than strained leaves. He still had to get to the Yard, he'd used up all his mat leave dealing with Mycroft's more Animal Planet side for the past week. It was a miracle they gave him time off at all, especially since Betas rarely got that sort of perk. There were still idiots at the Yard who found his relationship with Mycroft perverse and it had been damned hard explaining it to his own Alpha mother. It had been easy keeping it under wraps when the baby wasn't in the picture but now that they were committing to become a family, he was sure there was going to be some fallout. Mycroft Holmes was too important to be judged for where his naughty bits rubbed against someone else's, but Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade was an easy mark for the tabloids instead. They were going to have to tread real careful when it came to who they talked to.

"I shall call my brother and ask both him and Dr. Watson to visit us tomorrow," Mycroft said. "No doubt they shall be followed by the usual barrage of reporters, and a vague announcement of a happy Holmes addition should be pre-emptive in regards to both my enemies and your critics."

Lestrade's hopes of keeping this under wraps was dashed. "Are you sure that's wise?"

"You forget why I am the British government. I am supremely wise. Hiding the child will only create a weakness and that is not an option. I fear the repercussions against you personally may be quite severe, Gregory, but they will be temporary and I assure you, you will not lose your post at the Yard over this. There are harassment laws secured for this very reason."

"Easy for you to say, you don't have to hear the bullshit," Lestrade countered. "I don't know if you've noticed but people in general aren't very friendly towards Beta/Omega relations. I dealt with a deadly hate crime just last month, the one where that fifteen year old kid got beaten to death and his mother wouldn't even go to his damned funeral. Make no mistake, people are bloody monsters."

Karma began wailing in her bassinet, and Mycroft plucked her out of it, bringing her close to his chest to feed her. It was still an odd sight, but Lestrade was quickly getting used to it, especially with far more pressing issues weighing down on them both. They still hadn't found Karma's mother, and the fact they'd adopted this baby together would be another point of attack for the tabloids. Despite his self assuredness, Mycroft could still be perceived as human and thus weak, his cold analysis now tempered by the fact there was an unexpected mothering component to him. Mycroft's cell phone buzzed and he rolled his eyes when he saw who it was. Sherlock, Lestrade figured, and he was right.

"You and Dr. Watson can come by our home and see her any time you want," Mycroft barked into the phone. He frowned over the tirade Sherlock's piercing voice threw at him. "What do you mean 'As long as it doesn't cause bodily injury?' What are you talking about?"

Lestrade paused over his mug of coffee at this. So, Mycroft had no memory of that first day. He wondered what other gaps remained about that day, and how disturbed he would be by the truth. Knowing Mycroft's sense of pride, Lestrade made a pact to never reveal the extent of Lady Smallwood's injuries nor Mycroft's frantic breakdown in the bathing room. Ignorance is bliss and all that.

"I do believe my brother is going mad. The things he accused me of! Ridiculous!"

"We should probably get Molly here to give you a check-up, she did say we needed to call her when you...When you decided to take a break from your room." Lestrade gave himself a mental pat on the back for skirting around that issue quite nicely and Mycroft was clearly none the wiser. "Might as well check and see how the little sprite is healing. Molls was the one who set her arm in the first place, might even be all good by now, babies heal pretty quickly."

"It was a radial fracture and thus quite complex. A clean break would be easy, but this one splintered." A hard look came into Mycroft's eyes making them appear even icier than usual. He gently traced his fingers along the tiny cast. "Miss Hooper has already been contacted. If Sherlock and John aren't willing to come here tomorrow, I will go to them. They may have information that I wish discussed."

"You mean about the baby's mother."

Mycroft's head shot up at this. "Sherlock told you?"

Lestrade placed down his coffee mug on the table in front of them and folded his arms over his chest, his head crooked to one side in thought. "You getting involved might not be a good idea, Mykie. The less you know about the investigation, the better. You're still chock full of hormones and yeah, it was a little weird to say the least. I wouldn't want you attacking some unfortunate kid, I mean, who knows how this happened? She or he could have been raped, this could be incest...This is a tragedy all over."

"All the more reason for me to be informed," Mycroft snapped. "The facts of my child's lineage are important, Gregory. I need to know what to expect."

"You can expect her to be a well adjusted, happy little girl who grows up in a home where two people love her very much." He got up and kissed Mycroft on the top of his head and then Karma's forehead in turn. "Just concentrate on taking care of her. That's your main job right now."

Mycroft sulked and Lestrade took this as a good sign since it meant the man was taking what he said to heart. If he really wanted to argue the point he already would have, with every minuscule detail gone over in exhaustive picking until Lestrade couldn't stand it and he finally relented to Mycroft's will. That argumentative force didn't meet him this time. Lestrade bit down on the smile that threatened to erupt, it wasn't often Mycroft conceded someone else was right and especially not his Beta lover.

Well, they weren't exactly 'lovers' now so much as true partners, pretty much married, in fact, and with a kid besides, so maybe some give and take was already taking root between them. He made his way into the nearby kitchen and Mycroft's gaze followed him, tired and worried with a hint of neediness within it.

"I want to thank you, Gregory, for all the hard work you've done this week. I know it hasn't been easy for you, and I have a vague recollection of being quite demanding. You've arranged the house perfectly, I see the playpen in the corner of my office and the nursery is decorated to perfection in exactly the shades of green and purple I had requested should such a miracle befall us."

"I got a stroller in the garage," Lestrade said over his shoulder as he put the dirty dishes in the sink. "Your ride is complete with car seat with removable bassinet and I got a second one in my BMW. Blankets, nappies, baby wipes, zinc creams and clothes, I got the lot, but I know you'll be wanting to put your own touch on a few things so I left all the formal baby wear to you. Right now it's all functional sleepers and felt blankets. Oh, and this." He hopped back into the living room and snatched up a small stuffed sheep that had been perched on a cushion behind Mycroft's head. "It's small enough to be safe for her and doesn't have no choking hazards, that's what the sales clerk at Babyorama said. It's got a little stitched on grin, right cute. Figured she wouldn't need to count sheep if she can just cuddle with this one to get to sleep."

Karma was now happily dozing in Mycroft's arms. Lestrade gave her rosy, fat cheek a tickle and earned a consternated smirk that he'd often witnessed on Sherlock. Holmes DNA really was infectious.

Mycroft was looking at him very intently, a little too much, Lestrade thought, to the point it was getting uncomfortable. He wasn't threatening, not this time, but every bit of the Iceman's hard edges seemed to be melting into an unexpected softness that Lestrade was finding difficult to interpret. He'd seen it just a few times before, when Mycroft was in the beginning stages of his heat, a process he mostly suffered alone save for those rare times he actively sought out Lestrade for an attempt to procreate. Even then, their union happened at its end stages, and it was always a shock to Lestrade that they'd ever had success at all. He'd never witnessed Mycroft in a full blown heat session, and even after all these years he wasn't sure what to expect.

He hoped it was nothing like the whole tigress in the bedroom with her kitten thing. He'd kind of like to come out of the experience alive.

He had a sudden vision of Mycroft as a strangely lithe female praying mantis and he rubbed the back of his neck protectively. If his head was about to be chewed off he hoped it would painless.

The front doorbell rang and Mycroft's brows lifted. "That will be Miss Molly Hooper. I had Anthea make an early appointment for me when I was in the shower this morning. I'll put Karma down for her nap while you let her in."

Lestrade watched Mycroft carefully as he picked up Karma, the tiny baby dwarfed in his silken sleeves as he headed upstairs to the nursery next to their bedroom. He had the baby monitor on the kitchen counter and he could hear Mycroft cooing over Karma's little sleepy form, assuring her that he would be right back and not to worry, that he had everything under control. Pat answers he'd often given his Round Table, Lestrade realized, a strange mantra to give an infant in a sing-song voice.

He answered the front door and found Molly Hooper standing before him looking grim and well prepared. She had a jacket with thick padding that would daunt the jaws of a king German shepherd and she loosely held what looked to Lestrade to be a taser gun. With his mouth hanging open in shock, Molly pushed past Lestrade and into the house, her posture readied for a fight.

She didn't ease up until Mycroft came down the stairs to face her, his shoulders relaxed and a pleasant, almost sweet smell emanating from him that had all the hallmarks of a quality perfume. It wasn't, of course. Lestrade stood uneasily to the left of Molly Hooper, who sniffed the air around Mycroft in question.

"Not a full on heat, this is definitely a POE, pseudo-oestrus, brought on by the hormones the new baby has flooded you with. It's rather unusual to happen with adopted newborns but as you did get her almost immediately after a miscarriage this might be what's triggering it." She frowned as she looked at the damp splotches on Mycroft's silk dressing gown. "That's another indicator that your body has accepted the changeling infant as your own. Don't give me that look, that's what we call them in this instance. She's been eating regularly?"

"I have her on a routine schedule."

"Good to hear. Are you back on a regular course of meals, no longer needing the same heavy protein requirements as before? Are you no longer craving raw beef?"

Mycroft balked at this. "Whatever are you talking about?"

Molly gave Lestrade's stricken expression an understanding shrug. "Amnesia of the first week is also common."

"I haven't forgotten anything!" Mycroft exclaimed.

Molly let out a long sigh, shaking her head at Lestrade's sudden pallor. "You'll have no memory of what happened at all this past week, Mr. Holmes. Do not be alarmed, this is perfectly normal and also assures me that your hormone levels are now back to a more human level. Have a seat and we'll check your blood pressure and vitals and make sure you're as healthy as can be."

While Molly worked over Mycroft, Lestrade escaped into the kitchen, holding his barely tethered panic at bay. No memory at all of what had happened? Not even a vague hint? How was that possible? He could understand the thing with Smallwood but he'd been bringing him trays of meat all week, Lestrade had been risking his life day after day just taking care of him...And here the murderous tiger had no idea he'd been doing it!

"You're doing just fine, Mr. Holmes. I'll get this blood sample to the lab to make sure your iron levels are high enough, and that tenderness on your breast tissue can be eased with some warm compresses put on them when they feel uncomfortable. We'll check on baby now, if that's all right with you."

Lestrade followed behind them at a respectable distance, listening in as Molly talked about the regularity of feeding times, getting baby to sleep through the night and the odd feral snarl that Mycroft might experience if a stranger tried to pick his baby up, so it was important to limit the baby's exposure to close friends and family for the first few months. The cast would be coming off within two days, and they were both advised to keep an eye on it and make sure the arm was developing properly as the baby began to quickly grow. "She's already a few pounds up. You'll be feeling pretty depleted when she has a growth spurt. Make sure you take care of yourself and get plenty of calories and rest."

With that happy news that everyone was healthy, Mycroft remained in the nursery to resettle Karma while Lestrade brought Molly back to the front door, barely able to keep up with her quick, determined steps.

"That was a lightning quick visit, Molls, you sure you can't have a cup of tea or something first? I'd kind of like to talk about this amnesia thing, and how I'm supposed to deal with that."

Molly turned on him at the front door, her eyes boring into him like laser points. "Be careful."

Lestrade felt that sick sensation welling within him again. "I assure you that's all I've been since I witnessed him snapping Lady Smallwood like a chicken bone."

Molly glanced over his shoulder, ensuring they were still alone and she could speak in confidence. "It's not that. He's...He's in a sort of *heat*, Greg. Not a real one, but it has all the same hallmarks, save for the intensity might be a little more pronounced." She forced Greg to look at her, her words hitting him like daggers. "He will be insatiable. Do you understand?"

"I...I guess so?"

"Oh for fuck's sake, Greg!" She shook her head, frowning at how hopeless he was. "He's coming down the stairs now and he's going to be after you for hours. Just try and enjoy it."

~*~

Having a baby was definitely a unique experience, especially when it came to Omegas, and Greg had been foolish enough to think himself an expert on them thanks to his long relationship with Mycroft.

How very wrong he was!

It all started the second Molly Hooper closed the door behind her. Mycroft had crept up behind him like a cat on velvet feet, his hands sliding along Lestrade's back and smoothing out the length of his arms in gentle caresses that turned to massage at his shoulders. His lips were hot at Lestrade's ear, his tongue searing.

"Gregory..."

The sweet, pleasant smell of his skin was what hit him first, along with its softness and warmth that melted under every touch Lestrade offered, the little shudders that coursed through Mycroft an invitation to continue a more intimate sort of petting. Mycroft was shedding clothes before they even made it to the couch, damp pyjama pants in a puddle on the oriental carpet as he leaned back onto the cushions, knees spread in open, wanton expectation. He'd never been quite this pliant before, or so willing to be this exposed, and damn if it didn't turn Lestrade on, the smell of him, the slick feel of his sex against his palm sending a rushing heat to his hardened prick.

Sex with an Omega can be unusual for novices and even Alphas get weirded out the first time, especially with male Omegas. Everyone knew what a Beta female's anatomy looked like, a slit with folds that were topped with a little round nub that drove her wild when stimulated, that's the textbook health class version. With Omegas evolution had gone crazy, adding a long,hardened cylinder of flesh that wasn't a penis but a kind of barrier against their slit that acted like an organic chastity belt. No one really knew why it existed, save for perhaps keeping them from being forcibly mated during war, through brutality still made horrors like that possible. More likely was that it was a chromosomal leftover that an indecisive evolution left in limbo. When in high arousal, as Mycroft was now, the fleshy barrier lifted and was pressed tight against the lower abdomen, revealing an open and eager sex, glistening with slick. Lestrade slid his fingers across it, watching in fascination as Mycroft writhed from the slight touch, his pale, nude body begging for a prolonged fucking session.

Lestrade wasn't an Alpha, but it didn't take a genius to figure out which parts fit where, and teasing Mycroft at this point was more cruelty than pleasure. He was Omega right now, not Mycroft, and he wanted the reassurance of his mate, he wanted to feel that his chosen partner was still willing to connect with him.

Sliding into him was easy, the entrance smaller than a Beta female's, a tight, hot fit that was at first almost painful until it wasn't. As his body pressed against the hardened chastity belt, Mycroft whimpered and keened in pleasure, his thighs shaking as Lestrade took him.

Sex, for Lestrade, had always been easy. As he rode Mycroft's orgasm to his own climax he wasn't troubled by what came next. He didn't think about how all of this had changed dramatically, his usually reserved Mycroft now as open to him as if he'd splayed his own chest wide open and begged his darling Gregory to tear out his heart with his bare hands.

Breathless and spent, Lestrade panted over him, Mycroft's orgasm still coursing against him. "Please...Please Gregory...Please...Don't...Don't Gregory...Please...Do this for me....I need it...I need..."

Mycroft moaned and arched his back, his heat unsatisfied and for a moment Lestrade was at a loss until Mycroft managed to whimper, in a whisper so soft it could have been spoken through downy fur. "Please...Knot me...Knot me Gregory..."

Right.

And how in the hell was he supposed to do *that*?

"I'm not sure..."

Mycroft's limpid eyes snapped open, suddenly feral and furious and very mantis-momma-like. Gregory easily envisioned his arms being snapped and his neck for good measure, a suddenly starving Mycroft chomping through his skull and eating his head for a snack.

"FIGURE IT OUT AND DO IT!!"

Right. No choice then. Knot when you don't have a fucking Alpha penis and when your lover of over ten years has never asked you to. Bloody hell, Mycroft!

But one would be remiss if they thought Gregory Lestrade was not a man of ingenuity. He'd taken the same health classes as everyone else, knew the basic rudiments of every sex and what made them tick and how well he could make an Omega scream his name even when Mycroft wasn't in heat....A knot, in essence, was just a swollen lump of flesh beneath the pelvic bone, after all.

Pressure. That was all.

Three fingers, curled slightly at the knuckles and pushed in deep, with the heel of his hand squeezed at the base of that fleshy chastity belt, that ought to do something, right?

Mycroft's body stiffened beneath him, his eyes rolling white as he let out a mournful cry that was definitely not anguish, but was disturbing nonetheless. Whatever he was doing, Mycroft really, really liked it and judging from the way his limbs were now flailing helplessly and his moans were crying out Gregory's name, one could say this Beta had hit a home run where a few crappy Alphas hadn't.

Just for an experiment he wriggled his knuckles slightly.

The paroxysm from *that* near broke his hand.

Well. This was fun. A *lot* of fun. How long were knots supposed to last? Half an hour to an hour? He could keep his grip on Mycroft all afternoon if it got him off like this.

"You are one lucky little bitch," Lestrade growled into Mycroft's mouth, taking his gasping need with hungry force.

 

 

 


End file.
